Aldo Laurenti
The continuous artistic research that has characterized Aldo Laurenti’s path is made even more fascinating by the skilful use of forms, designed to immediately convey – despite the perimeter devoid of artistic and interpretative constraints of the philosophical vision of abstract art – the idea, elevated to a paradigm, of a society that is losing pieces, where continuous progress is systematically accompanied by an inevitable regression, where apparent conquests leave something on the battlefield, where violence is no longer marginalized but contextualized in urban everyday life. The void, the fracture, the mechanical deformation are not only further space for artistic research but above all a true “punch in the stomach” to Power at the service of itself. This social slant imprinted by the author on his works of painting and sculpture indelibly historicizes a historical era that is fundamental in every sense in the history of man.
Born in Naples in 1932, he attended the Art Institute where his History of Art teacher was Vasco Pratolini, whose teaching was decisive for his artistic-cultural education (Pratolini lived in his father’s house in Florence, close to the studio of great painter Ottone Rosai whose friendship was of fundamental importance to him, as it was thanks to Rosai that he made his first literary discoveries).
Throughout his life he carried out an intense teaching activity as a teacher of ceramic decoration in numerous art institutes: Lecce, Chieti, Perugia, Deruta. He later worked on ceramic design at the Art Institutes of Perugia and Vibo Valentia. He held the role of Director at the Art Institutes of Fermo, Vibo Valentia, San Cataldo (CL), Vasto (CH), Pescara
He is the author of numerous works of graphics, painting and sculpture, with an informal, abstract representation of conceptual elements.
The emphasis that the Neapolitan artist places on the concepts of “line” and “void” is particularly interesting. It represents lines that are not necessarily parallel but which, just like the latter, tend to never meet; he proposes a volumetric scan made up of full and empty spaces but it is the latter that interest him most. The parallel that can be seen with the society of those years (’60s – ’70s) is completely evident, imbued with an economic boom first and then a crisis, with, above all, important youth and student turbulence where there was a continuous search for individuality. – shared however in everyday life and in principles – which looked to the present, without much clarity for the future, also in light of international uncertainties (energy crisis and Vietnam war in primis).
For example, in the work “Programma Ipotetico” from 1972 we are faced with a uniform and almost militaristic representation of society, in particular that homologated part of individuals who, despite individual differences, see youth protest only as a contingent problem to be resolved at the sooner. The work represents a society meticulously planned and framed by those who hold power and control.
This continuous experimentation of our artist leads, in the new millennium, to a series of great paintings that analyze the fragility of built spaces and the uncertainties linked to precariousness and inequalities. In the great work “Memory black” from 2002, Aldo Laurenti deconstructs the American dream which collapsed a few months earlier with the attack on the Twin Towers in New York.
With the 2004 work “Violenza Esterna” Laurenti, having become aware of the violent forms that pervade the social fabric, explicitly asks for the reasons and plastically describes the effects, making them clearly visible on the work, which thus becomes the cornerstone markedly compromised and rendered unusable due to its fragility, forcefully undermining the basic principles of society, represented by the circuits of internal lines deformed by the impact.
Working on the recurring concept of “empty”, Laurenti divides space, the volume, into solid and empty but it is the latter that he looks at carefully because even the void determines a natural form that in some way pervades society and conditions it. The concept of “emptiness” recurs throughout Aldo Laurenti’s artistic production, clearly implying that society will never be able to free itself from these voids: time will change shape, space, volume but they will always be an element of conditioning. His works function as critical social analysis and are still relevant today. Aldo Laurenti’s art is not anchored to the past but brightly projected towards the future.
His works are present in private and public collections.
He died in Pescara in 2016.
